gFlash Pro in Review – Flashing… in a Good Way

I find that I’m using my iTouch less as a music player and more as an extremely portable computer. I spend more time surfing the web, using apps, and playing games than I do just sitting there listening to music. This is a testimony to the versatility and functionality that Apps, such as gFlash Pro, bring to this wonderful platform.

Given the 15,000 apps in iTunes, it is easy to imagine that there are hidden gems scattered throughout; those amazingly useful apps that, whether through lack of advertising or bad timing, get passed over. As it is, gFlash Pro never really got the chance it deserved. This is definitely indicated by the 17 reviews that averaged out to 4 stars in iTunes.

So, what is gFlash Pro, and why do I consider it a hidden gem?

It is one of the fullest functioning flash card programs the AppStore has to offer. This has the benefit of hitting that target edu-tainment audience. You can use the flash-cards to help you study for exams, learn trivia, or for your own personal enrichment. This isn’t a necessarily boring or pedantic (if you don’t know what this mean, maybe a vocabulary flash-card set is in order) endeavor. There is some truly enlightening information out there that you can find with this app.

The interface is really easy to use. It switches between portrait and landscape mode smoothly based on your use of the accelerometer. You can change from a one card view to a two card view where you tap the second card to reveal your answer. You can play it Jeopardy and guess the question for the answer. There is the option to either keep track of your score or to play scoreless. Also, you are not limited to just text. The app, gFlash Pro, also includes videos, sounds, and images that does much to enhance the whole experience.

gWhz LLC also partnered with StudyStack.com in an easy to use manner. In the downloads section, you can either import your own google docs as flash-card sets, you can download from gWhiz’s library, or from StudyStack.com’s. These cover a wide range of topics.

Unfortunately, there are two aspects of this that draw away from the positives of gFlash Pro. One is the use of user generated content. Much like wikipedia, much of the information is good and reliable, but there may be some that is not. So it does create a small layer of caution when absorbing the information on the cards. Also, there’s no real way to properly browse through gWhiz’s library. StudyStack’s is easier to do so, a they are broken off into different categories, but gWhiz’s is more difficult to navigate. Basically, you are given a search function. Now, for people like me who like to peruse categories and see what appeals, there is no way for us to become appeased. Unless you know what you’re looking for, you cannot find it except by chance. Also, there are a few glitches and the program did crash on me once.

Despite these two negatives, the options to use videos, pics, sounds, and texts, the import from google docs function, the connection with StudyStack, and so forth really make this app worth looking at.

If you’re still curious as to whether you’d want this, they do have a free ad-based limited demo version called gFlash+. It’s the same thing except you cannot download from StudyStack’s library, it has a bunch of ads, does not include sounds/youtube clips, and so forth. A complete detail of what is included or excluded can be found on http://www.gwhizmobile.com/Desktop/gFlash.php.